Thanks Phil!
I just tested both alsa kernel mods in epel-testing and found the newer one (1.0.24-1) didn't fix the problem for me (my hardware uses the even older N10/ICH7 chipset), kmod-alsa-1.0.23-1.el6.elrepo did. Given the advantages of kAPI-tracking kmods, I'll be sticking with that for now.
